


Big fandom, little fandom

by Elf (Elfwreck)



Category: No Fandom, Yuletide - Fandom
Genre: Fandom, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Traditional Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elf
Summary: In which Elf attempts to figure out what qualifies for Yuletide based entirely on what kind of media it shows up in. (Spoiler: Yuletide eligibility does not work that way.)
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Big fandom, little fandom

I've been considering what makes a "big fandom" vs what makes a "Yuletide-able fandom." Tell me if I've got this right:

**Rule 1: If it's only available on the printed page, it's YT-able.**  
~~The biggest book-only fandom I could find was Good Omens.~~ (ETA: Rule has been borked by facts: GO is not YT-eligible. Pfeh. It was a good rule while it lasted.) It's at the same rough popularity level as several comic fandoms that have never had TV series or movies. (Exception: Kon-El, Superboy. Must contemplate how this fits with other rules. Meh; it'll be moot by next year; YJ's getting a tv show.) I don't know if this carries over to manga or not, but I suspect it does--that print-only manga, as contrasted with that which has an animated form, is included in "small fandoms." The biggest lit-only fandoms on AO3 are Good Omens, Tamora Pierce's works, and Discworld.

**Rule 2: If it's nonfiction, and doesn't/didn't have a _prime-time television_ presence, it's YT-able.**  
This includes things like documentaries (Bowling for Columbine fic, anyone?), NPR, Prairie Home Companion, AnthropomorFic, blogosphere fic (is there any of this? Maybe I'll suggest DailyKos as a fandom this year), In Search Of, non-primetime talk shows.

**Rule 3: Designed for stage? YT-able.**  
Gilbert & Sullivan. Shakespeare anything. Fiddler on the Roof. Rent. Not even Johnny Depp could make Sweeney Todd jump out of small fandomhood. (Well. And also, it's dark & creepy, and as much as we like that, very very few dark & creepy fandoms are big.) Rocky Horror is a *huge* fandom... at movie theatres. Not for fic.

**Rule 4: If canon takes less than an hour to experience, it's YT-able**  
This would include short stories & single-issue comics if they weren't covered by Rule 1. It does, however, include individual songs, Showtime Shorts (where *is* the Hardware Wars fic?), Youtube videos, and TV commercials. Tiny animated canon = tiny fandom. Sometimes, size _does_ matter.

**Rule 5: If it's not 21st century, and not legitimately available on disc or tape, it's YT-able.**  
Big fandoms have big media backers. TV series, no matter how popular, that can't be bought today, are small fandoms. (I'm unsure of this rule. Examples, pro & con, would be welcome.) I don't make any claim that big fandoms are caused by corporate backing; I suspect it's the other way around--MUNCLE was still popular enough years later to create a DVD set; Lucan, despite being much more recent, was not. (For fairly good reasons, I'll grant.)

**Rule 6: There is no rule 6.**  
Sorry. I had to.

**Rule 7: If the internet is its originating medium, it's YT-able.**  
I'm not sure about this one, but it matches all the web fandoms I can think of. WoW, Dr Horrible, Neopets, Frank the Goat, SecondLife, and all sorts of things I don't do on the web 'cos dialup doesn't make them go.

~~**Rule 8: Animated tv series (English lang origin) w/o a corresponding movie are YT-able**.  
Again, unsure. But I can't think of any cartoons that are big fandoms w/o movie support. Unsure how this connects to anime, hence the parenthetical disclaimer. More data would be nice.~~ ETA: Borked by pre-movie A:TLA.

**New Rule 8: Single-movie fandoms with no book series & no tv presence are eligible.**  
Apparently, soon to be thrown out by Inception.

***

So. That's my obvious is-this-YTable checklist. Now, for what's *not* YT-able, it's a lot harder to check. I don't have rules for these as much as warning signs.

3 or more media? Bad sign for YTability. Comics, movie & tv series is unlikely. (However, there are a number of comics-to-movies flops that are still YTable: Daredevil, Electra, Hulk, Supergirl.)

Movie-only fandom: Almost certainly YT-able. Two notable exceptions: Star Wars, the original movie megafandom, and Pirates of the Caribbean. (And yes, these *now* both have plenty of non-movie manifestations--comics, tv shows for SW, maybe books. But those came after the movie fandoms were huge.)

Book-and-Movie fandom: I can think of a handful big fandoms here: LotR, Harry Potter, Twilight, Narnia, Iron Man (there's never been an IM cartoon, right? Or did I miss that?). Most book-to-movie transitions stay in small fandomland: Silence of the Lambs (now we're back in dark-and-ookyland; shove all the Clive Barker stuff here too), James Bond--which, despite *amazing* movie popularity, remains a small ficfandom. Again, I don't know manga & anime enough to know how the transition from book-to-movie without a TV presence works for those; suggestions would be welcome even though I probably won't know what you're talking about.

Video games: I have no idea how videogame fandoms fit in all this, because I don't keep up with which ones get TV or movie presences. (Or rather, other than Final Fantasy & Tomb Raider, I have no idea movies or tv shows started as video games.)

I'm running out of "rule"-ish things, and into maybes, so I'll stop listing. I'm going to keep pondering where the boundaries are between "big fandom" and "not-so-big fandom," and what patterns show up between them.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at <https://elf.dreamwidth.org/342433.html> and at <https://yuletide.livejournal.com/845439.html> where there are comments.


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